In an effort to better meet the needs of its customers,
the United States national tourist office, U.S. Travel and
Tourism Administration (USTTA) , surveyed travel and tourism
industry organizations to determine their awareness and
usage levels for the numerous programs and services offered
by USTTA, the value they placed on these programs and
services, and where improvements can be made. This survey
was especially critical to USTTA as it embarked upon the
Total Quality Management philosophy (which focuses on
knowing your customers and their needs in order to better
serve them) .
A secondary issue existed for USTTA to determine if
government funding should be spent on programs related to
international tourism to the United States.
The questionnaire was sent to all organizations from
fourteen travel and tourism industry sectors involved in the
international arena. The universe of these industry groups
was surveyed so the returns within each sector would be
large enough to allow the results to be analyzed separately.
Of 3,884 surveys mailed, 1,414 organizations returned
completed, usable surveys, resulting in a 37% response rate.
The survey instrument was divided into four sections:
USTTA 's Marketing Function, USTTA' s Research Function,
USTTA 's Policy Function, and General Questions. The purpose
of the first three sections were to focus specifically on
the programs available in each of USTTA 's three functional
areas. The desired outcome was to understand which industry
groups were aware of which programs, their usage of those
programs (except for Policy since their activities cannot be
"used") , and their perceived value of those programs.
Questions were also developed to learn what specific
improvements could be made to better meet the users' needs.
The General Questions section was framed to attain
information on whether government expenditures should be
made on programs related to international tourism to the
U.S. and how USTTA should be funded.
What USTTA learned from this survey was that awareness
of the various Agency programs was relatively high in most
cases (two-thirds of the programs had awareness levels above
50%) but it differed among industry groups. The groups
which are impacted the most by a program were the most
likely to be aware of the program and were the heaviest
users of that program.
The level of usage provides USTTA with knowledge about
where to concentrate its efforts in garnering more users and
who to contact with related program information. However,
knowing the perceived value allows USTTA to determine if the
program is worthwhile providing. The overall value scores
for the various USTTA programs were relatively high; on a
scale from 1 (low) to 6 (high) , the average value rating for
all programs was 4.76. At the individual program levels and
industry group levels, these value scores differ.
State tourism offices emerged as USTTA 's primary
customer group. Within the individual USTTA function areas,
other industry groups surfaced as principal customers.
For the funding issue, overwhelming approval was voiced
for having government expenditures made on programs related
to international tourism, with the method of funding being
the current method appropriations.